of the national principle to Central and South Germany had recently met
with several checks; but the diplomatic blunders of the French
Government, the threats of their Press that the Napoleonic troops would
repeat the wonders of 1805; above all, admiration of the dignified
conduct of King William under what were thought to be gratuitous insults
from France, began to kindle the flame of German patriotism even in the
particularists of the South. The news that the deservedly popular Crown
Prince of Prussia, Frederick William, would command the army now
mustering in the Palatinate, largely composed of South Germans, sent a
thrill of joy through those States. Taught by the folly of her
stay-at-home strategy in 1866, Bavaria readily sent her large contingent
beyond the Rhine; and all danger of a French irruption into South
Germany was ended by the speedy massing of the Third German Army, some
200,000 strong in all, on the north of Alsace. For the French to cross
the Rhine at Speyer, or even at Kehl, in front of a greatly superior
army (though as yet they knew not its actual strength) was clearly
impossible; and in the closing hours of July the French headquarters
fell back on other plans, which, speaking generally, were to defend the
French frontier from the Moselle to the Rhine by striking at the
advanced German troops. At least, that seems to be the most natural
explanation of the sudden and rather flurried changes then made.
It was wise to hide this change to a strategic defensive by assuming a
tactical offensive; and on August 2 two divisions of Frossard's corps
attacked and drove back the advanced troops of the Second German Army
from Saarbrücken. The affair was unimportant: it could lead to nothing,
unless the French had the means of following up the success. This they
had not; and the advance of the First and Second German Armies,
commanded by General Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles, was soon to
deprive them of this position.
Meanwhile the Germans were making ready a weighty enterprise. The
muster of the huge Third Army to the north of Alsace enabled their
General Staff to fix August 4 for a general advance against that
frontier. It fell to this army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia,
Frederick William, to strike the first great blow. Early on August 4 a
strong Bavarian division advanced against the small fortified town of
Weissenburg, which lies deep down in the valley of the Lauter,
surrounded by lofty hills. There it surprised a weak French division,
the vanguard of MacMahon's army, commanded by General Abel Douay, whose
scouts had found no trace of the advancing enemy. About 10 A.M. Douay
fell, mortally wounded; another German division, working round the town
to the east, carried the strong position of the Geisberg; and these
combined efforts, frontal and on the flank, forced the French hastily to
retreat westwards over the hills to Wörth, after losing more than
2000 men.
The news of this reverse and of the large German forces ready to pour
into the north of Alsace led the Emperor to order the 7th French corps
at Belfort, and the 5th in and around Bitsch, to send reinforcements to
MacMahon, whose main force held the steep and wooded hills between the
villages of Wörth, Fröschweiler, and Reichshofen. The line of railway
between Strassburg and Bitsch touches Reichshofen; but, for some reason
that has never been satisfactorily explained, MacMahon was able to draw
up only one division from the side of Strassburg and Belfort, and not
one from Bitsch, which was within an easy march. The fact seems to be
that de Failly, in command at Bitsch, was a prey to conflicting orders
from Metz, and therefore failed to bring up the 5th corps as he should
have done. MacMahon's cavalry was also very defective in scouting, and
he knew nothing as to the strength of the forces rapidly drawing near
from Weissenburg and the east.
Certainly his position at Wörth was very strong. The French lines were
ranged along the steep wooded slope running north and south, with
buttress-like projections, intersected by gullies, the whole leading up
to a plateau on which stand the village of Fröschweiler and the hamlet
of Elsasshausen. Behind is the wood called the Grosser Wald, while the
hamlet is flanked on the south and in front by an outlying wood, the
Niederwald. Behind the Grosser Wald the ground sinks away to the valley
in which runs the Bitsch-Reichshofen railway. In front of MacMahon's
position lay the village of Wörth, deep in the valley of the Sauerbach.
The invader would therefore have to carry this village or cross the
stream, and press up the long open slopes on which were ranged the
French troops and batteries with all the advantages of cover and
elevation on their side. A poor general, having forces smaller than
those of his enemy, might hope to hold such a position. But there was
one great defect. Owing to de Failly's absence MacMahon had not enough
men to hold the whole of the position marked out by Nature for defence.
Conscious of its strength, the Prussian Crown Prince ordered the leaders
of his vanguard not to bring on a general engagement on August 6, when
the invading army had not at hand its full striking strength[38]. But
orders failed to hold in the ardour of the Germans under the attacks of
the French. Affairs of outposts along the Sauerbach early on that
morning brought on a serious fight, which up to noon went against the
invaders. At that time the Crown Prince galloped to the front, and
ordered an attack with all available forces. The fighting, hitherto
fierce but spasmodic between division and division, was now fed by a
steady stream of German reinforcements, until 87,000 of the invaders
sought to wrest from MacMahon the heights, with their woods and
villages, which he had but 54,000 to defend. The superiority of numbers
soon made itself felt. Pursuant to the Crown Prince's orders, parts of
two Bavarian corps began to work their way (but with one strangely long
interval of inaction) through the wood to the north of the French left
wing; on the Prussian 11th corps fell the severer task of winning their
way up the slopes south of Wörth, and thence up to the Niederwald and
Elsasshausen. When these woods were won, the 5th corps was to make its
frontal attack from Wörth against Fröschweiler. Despite the desperate
efforts of the French and their Turco regiments, and a splendid but
hopeless charge of two regiments of Cuirassiers and one of Lancers
against the German infantry, the Niederwald and Elsasshausen were won;
and about four o'clock the sustained fire of fifteen German batteries
against Fröschweiler enabled the 5th corps to struggle up that deadly
glacis in spite of desperate charges by the defenders.
[Footnote 38: See von Blumenthal's _Journals_, p. 87 (Eng. edit.): "The
battle which I had expected to take place on the 7th, and for which I
had prepared a good scheme for turning the enemy's right flank, came on
of itself to-day."]
Throughout the day the French showed their usual dash and devotion, some
regiments being cut to pieces rather than retire. But by five o'clock
the defence was outflanked on the two wings and crushed at the centre;
human nature could stand no more after eight hours' fighting; and after
a final despairing effort of the French Cuirassiers all their line gave
way in a general rout down the slopes to Reichshofen and towards
Saverne. Apart from the Würtembergers held in reserve, few of the
Germans were in a condition to press the pursuit. Nevertheless the
fruits of victory were very great: 10,000 Frenchmen lay dead or wounded;
6000 unwounded prisoners were taken, with 28 cannon and 5 mitrailleuses.
Above all, MacMahon's fine army was utterly broken, and made no attempt
to defend any of the positions on the north of the Vosges. Not even a
tunnel was there blown up to delay the advance of the Germans. Hastily
gathering up the 5th corps from Bitsch--the corps which ought to have
been at Wörth--that gallant but unfortunate general struck out to the
south-west for the great camp at Châlons. The triumph, however, cost the
Germans dear. As many as 10,600 men were killed or wounded, the 5th
Prussian corps alone losing more than half that number. Their cavalry
failed to keep touch with the retreating French.
On that same day (August 6) a disaster scarcely less serious overtook
the French 2nd corps, which had been holding Saarbrücken. Convinced that
that post was too advanced and too weak in presence of the foremost
divisions of the First and Second German Armies now advancing rapidly
against it, General Frossard drew back his vanguard some mile and a half
to the line of steep hills between Spicheren and Forbach, just within
the French frontier. This retreat, as it seemed, tempted General Kameke
to attack with a single division, as he was justified in doing in order
to find the direction and strength of the retiring force. The attack,
when pushed home, showed that the French were bent on making a stand on
their commanding heights; and an onset on the Rothe Berg was stoutly
beaten off about noon.
But now the speedy advance and intelligent co-operation of other German
columns was instrumental in turning an inconsiderable repulse into an
important victory. General Göben was not far off, and marching towards
the firing, sent to offer his help with the 8th corps. General von
Alvensleben, also, with the 3rd corps had reached Neunkirchen when the
sound of firing near Saarbrücken led him to push on for that place with
the utmost speed. He entrained part of his corps and brought it up in
time to strengthen the attack on the Rothe Berg and other heights nearer
to Forbach. Each battalion as it arrived was hurled forward, and General
von François, charging with his regiment, gained a lodgment half-way up
the broken slope of the Rothe Berg, which was stoutly maintained even
when he fell mortally wounded. Elsewhere the onsets were repelled by the
French, who, despite their smaller numbers, kept up a sturdy resistance
on the line of hills in the woods behind, and in the iron-works in front
of Forbach. Even when the Germans carried the top of the Rothe Berg,
their ranks were riddled by a cross fire; but by incredible exertions
they managed to bring guns to the summit and retaliate with effect[39].
[Footnote 39: For these details about the fighting at the Rothe Berg I
am largely indebted to my friend, Mr. Bernard Pares, M.A., who has made
a careful study of the ground there, as also at Wörth and Sedan.]
This, together with the outflanking movement which their increasing
numbers enabled them to carry out against the French left wing at
Forbach, decided the day; and Frossard's corps fell back shattered
towards the corps of Bazaine. It is noteworthy that this was but nine or
ten miles to the rear. Bazaine had ordered three divisions to march
towards the firing: one made for a wrong point and returned; the others
made half-hearted efforts, and thus left Frossard to be overborne by
numbers. The result of these disjointed movements was that both Frossard
and Bazaine hurriedly retired towards Metz, while the First and Second
German Armies now gathered up all their strength with the aim of
shutting up the French in that fortress. To this end the First Army made
for Colombey, east of Metz, while the leading part of the Second Army
purposed to cross the Moselle south of Metz, and circle round that
stronghold on the west.
It is now time to turn to the French headquarters. These two crushing
defeats on a single day utterly dashed Napoleon's plan of a spirited
defence of the north-east frontier, until such time as the levies of
1869 should be ready, or Austria and Italy should draw the sword. On
July 26 the Austrian ambassador assured the French Ministry that Austria
was pushing on her preparations. Victor Emmanuel was with difficulty
restrained by his Ministers from openly taking the side of France. On
the night of August 6 he received telegraphic news of the Battles of
Wörth and Forbach, whereupon he exclaimed, "Poor Emperor! I pity him,
but I have had a lucky escape." Austria also drew back, and thus left
France face to face with the naked truth that she stood alone and
unready before a united and triumphant Germany, able to pour treble her
own forces through the open portals of Lorraine and northern Alsace.
Napoleon III., to do him justice, had never cherished the wild dreams
that haunted the minds of his consort and of the frothy "Mamelukes"
lately in favour at Court; still less did the "silent man of destiny"
indulge in the idle boasts that had helped to alienate the sympathy of
Europe and to weld together Germany to withstand the blows of a second
Napoleonic invasion. The nephew knew full well that he was not the Great
Napoleon--he knew it before Victor Hugo in spiteful verse vainly sought
to dub him the Little. True, his statesmanship proved to be mere dreamy
philosophising about nationalities; his administrative powers, small at
the best, were ever clogged by his too generous desire to reward his
fellow-conspirators of the _coup d'état_ of 1851; and his gifts for war
were scarcely greater than those of the other _Napoléonides_, Joseph and
Jerome. Nevertheless the reverses of his early life had strengthened
that fund of quiet stoicism, that energy to resist if not to dare, which
formed the backbone of an otherwise somewhat weak, shadowy, and
uninspiring character. And now, in the rapid fall of his fortunes, the
greatest adventurer of the nineteenth century showed to the full those
qualities of toughness and dignified reserve which for twenty years had
puzzled and imposed on that lively emotional people. By the side of the
downcast braggarts of the Court and the unstrung screamers of the
Parisian Press, his mien had something of the heroic. _Tout peut se
rétablir_--"All may yet be set right"--such was the vague but dignified
phrase in which he summarised the results of August 6 to his people.
The military situation now required a prompt retirement beyond the
Moselle. The southerly line of retreat, which MacMahon and de Failly had
been driven to take, forbade the hope of their junction with the main
army at Metz in time to oppose a united front to the enemy. And it was
soon known that their flight could not be stayed at Nancy or even at
Toul. During the agony of suspense as to their movements and those of
their German pursuers, the Emperor daily changed his plans. First, he
and Leboeuf planned a retreat beyond the Moselle and Meuse; next,
political considerations bade them stand firm on the banks of the Nied,
some twelve miles east of Metz; and when this position seemed unsafe,
they ended the marchings and counter-marchings of their troops by taking
up a position at Colombey, nearer to Metz.
Meanwhile at Paris the Chamber of Deputies had overthrown the Ollivier
Ministry, and the Empress-Regent installed in office Count Palikao.
There was a general outcry against Leboeuf, and on the 12th the Emperor
resigned the command to Marshal Bazaine (Lebrun now acting as Chief of
Staff), with the injunction to retreat westwards to Verdun. For the
Emperor to order such a retreat in his own name was thought to be
inopportune. Bazaine was a convenient scapegoat, and he himself knew it.
Had he thrown an army corps into Metz and obeyed the Emperor's orders by
retreating on Verdun, things would certainly have gone better than was
now to be the case. In his printed defence Bazaine has urged that the
army had not enough provisions for the march, and, further, that the
outlying forts of Metz were not yet ready to withstand a siege--a
circumstance which, if true, partly explains Bazaine's reluctance to
leave the "virgin city[40]." Napoleon III. quitted it early on the 16th:
he and his escort were the last Frenchmen to get free of that death-trap
for many a week.
[Footnote 40: Bazaine gave this excuse in his _Rapport sommaire sur les
Opérations de l'Armée du Rhin_; but as a staff-officer pointed out in
his incisive _Réponse_, this reason must have been equally cogent when
Napoleon (August 12) ordered him to retreat; and he was still bound to
obey the Emperor's orders.]
While Metz exercised this fatal fascination over the protecting army,
the First and Second German Armies were striding westwards to envelop
both the city and its guardians. Moltke's aim was to hold as many of the
French to the neighbourhood of the fortress, while his left wing swung
round it on the south. The result was the battle of Colombey on the east
of Metz (August 14). It was a stubborn fight, costing the Germans some
5000 men, while the French with smaller losses finally withdrew under
the eastern walls of Metz. But that heavy loss meant a great ultimate
gain to Germany. The vacillations of Bazaine, whose strategy was far
more faulty than that of Napoleon III. had been, together with the delay
caused by the defiling of a great part of the army through the narrow
streets of Metz, gave the Germans an opportunity such as had not
occurred since the year 1805, when Napoleon I. shut up an Austrian
army in Ulm.
The man who now saw the splendid chance of which Fortune vouchsafed a
glimpse, was Lieutenant-General von Alvensleben, Commander of the 3rd
corps, whose activity and resource had so largely contributed
to the victory of Spicheren-Forbach. Though the orders of his
Commander-in-Chief, Prince Frederick Charles, forbade an advance until
the situation in front was more fully known, the General heard enough to
convince himself that a rapid advance southwards to and over the Moselle
might enable him to intercept the French retreat on Verdun, which might
now be looked on as certain. Reporting his conviction to his chief as
also to the royal headquarters, he struck out with all speed on the
15th, quietly threw a bridge over the river, and sent on his advanced
guard as far as Pagny, near Gorze, while all his corps, about 33,000
strong, crossed the river about midnight. Soon after dawn, he pushed on
towards Gorze, knowing by this time that the other corps of the Second
Army were following him, while the 7th and 8th corps of the First Army
were about to cross the river nearly opposite that town.
This bold movement, which would have drawn on him sharp censure in case
of overthrow, was more than justifiable seeing the discouraged state of
the French troops, the supreme need of finding their line of retreat,
and the splendid results that must follow on the interception of that
retreat. The operations of war must always be attended with risk, and
the great commander is he whose knowledge of the principles of strategy
enables him quickly to see when the final gain warrants the running of
risks, and how they may be met with the least likelihood of disaster.
Alvensleben's advance was in accordance with Moltke's general plan of
operations; but that corps-leader, finding the French to be in force
between him and Metz, determined to attack them in order to delay their
retreat. The result was the battle of August 16, variously known as
Vionville, Rezonville, or Mars-la-Tour--a battle that defies brief
description, inasmuch as it represented the effort of the Third, or
Brandenburg, corps, with little help at first from others, to hold its
ground against the onsets of two French corps. Early in the fight
Bazaine galloped up, but he did not bring forward the masses in his
rear, probably because he feared to be cut off from Metz. Even so, all
through the forenoon, it seemed that the gathering forces of the French
must break through the thin lines audaciously thrust into that almost
open plain on the flank of their line of march. But Alvensleben and his
men held their ground with a dogged will that nothing could shatter. In
one sense their audacity saved them. Bazaine for a long time could not
believe that a single corps would throw itself against one of the two
roads by which his great army was about to retreat. He believed that the
northern road might also be in danger, and therefore did not launch at
Alvensleben the solid masses that must have swept him back towards the
Meuse. At noon four battalions of the German 10th corps struggled up
from the south and took their share of the hitherto unequal fight.
But the crisis of the fight came a little later. It was marked by one of
the most daring and effective strokes ever dealt in modern warfare. At 2
o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville
threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of
the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on
the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them--that was impossible--but
to delay their advance and weaken their impact. Only half of the brave
horsemen returned from that ride of death, but they gained their end.
The mad charge drove deep into the French array about Rezonville, and
gave their leaders pause in the belief that it was but the first of a
series of systematic attacks on the French left. System rather than dash
was supposed to characterise German tactics; and the daring of their
enemies for once made the French too methodical. Bazaine scarcely
brought the 3rd corps and the Guard into action at all, but kept them
in reserve. As the afternoon sun waned, the whole weight of the German
10th corps was thrown into the fight about Vionville, and the vanguards
of the 8th and 9th came up from Gorze to threaten the French left.
Fearing that he might be cut off from Metz on the south--a fear which
had unaccountably haunted him all the day--Bazaine continued to feed
that part of his lines; and thus Alvensleben was able to hold the
positions near the southern road to Verdun, which he had seized in the
morning. The day closed with a great cavalry combat on the German left
wing in which the French had to give way. Darkness alone put an end to
the deadly strife. Little more than two German corps had sufficed to
stay the march of an army which potentially numbered in all more than
170,000 men.
On both sides the losses were enormous, namely, some 16,000 killed and
wounded. No cannon, standards, or prisoners were taken; but on that day
the army of Prince Frederick Charles practically captured the whole of
Bazaine's army. The statement may seem overdrawn, but it is none the
less true. The advance of other German troops on that night made
Bazaine's escape from Metz far more difficult than before, and very
early on the morrow he drew back his lines through Gravelotte to a
strong position nearer Metz. Thus, a battle, which in a tactical sense
seemed to be inconclusive, became, when viewed in the light of strategy,
the most decisive of the war. Had Bazaine used even the forces which he
had in the field ready to hand he must have overborne Alvensleben; and
the arrival of 170,000 good troops at Verdun or Châlons would have
changed the whole course of the war. The campaign would probably have
followed the course of the many campaigns waged in the valleys of the
Meuse and Marne; and Metz, held by a garrison of suitable size, might
have defied the efforts of a large besieging army for fully six months.
These conjectures are not fanciful. The duration of the food supply of a
garrison cut off from the outside world varies inversely with the size
of that garrison. The experiences of armies invading and defending the
East of France also show with general accuracy what might have been
expected if the rules of sound strategy had been observed. It was the
actual course of events which transcended experience and set all
probabilities at defiance.
The battle of Gravelotte, or St. Privat, on the 18th completed the work
so hardily begun by the 3rd German corps on the 16th. The need of
driving back Bazaine's army upon Metz was pressing, and his inaction on
the 17th gave time for nearly all the forces of the First and Second
German Armies to be brought up to the German positions, some nine miles
west of Metz, though one corps was left to the east of that fortress to
hinder any attempt of the French to break out on that side. Bazaine,
however, massed his great army on the west along a ridge stretching
north and south, and presenting, especially in the southern half, steep
slopes to the assailants. It also sloped away to the rear, thus enabling
the defenders (as was the case with Wellington at Waterloo) secretly to
reinforce any part of the line. On the French left wing, too, the slopes
curved inward, thus giving the defenders ample advantage against any
flanking movements on that side. On the north, between Amanvillers and
Ste. Marie-aux-Chênes, the defence had fewer strong points except those
villages, the Jaumont Wood, and the gradual slope of the ground away to
the little River Orne, which formed an open glacis. Bazaine massed his
reserves on the plateau of Plappeville and to the rear of his left wing;
but this cardinal fault in his dispositions--due to his haunting fear of
being cut off from Metz--was long hidden by the woods and slopes in the
rear of his centre. The position here and on the French left was very
strong, and at several parts so far concealed the troops that up to 11
A.M. the advancing Germans were in doubt whether the French would not
seek to break away towards the north-west. That so great an army would
remain merely on the defensive, a course so repugnant to the ardour of
the French nature and the traditions of their army, entered into the
thoughts of few.
Yet such was the case. The solution of the riddle is to be found in
Bazaine's despatch of August 17 to the Minister of War: "We are going to
put forth every effort to make good our supplies of all kinds in order
to resume our march in two days if that is possible[41]." That the army
was badly hampered by lack of stores is certain; but to postpone even
for a single day the march to Verdun by the northern road--that by way
of Briey--was fatal. Possibly, however, he hoped to deal the Germans so
serious a blow, if they attacked him on the 18th, as to lighten the
heavy task of cutting his way out on the 19th.
[Footnote 41: Bazaine, _Rapport sommaire, etc._ The sentence quoted
above is decisive. The defence which Bazaine and his few defenders later
on put forward, as well as the attacks of his foes, are of course mixed
up with theories evolved _after_ the event.]
If so, he nearly succeeded. The Germans were quite taken aback by the
extent and strength of his lines. Their intention was to outflank his
right wing, which was believed to stretch no further north than
Amanvillers; but the rather premature advance of Manstein's 9th corps
soon drew a deadly fire from that village and the heights on either
side, which crushed the artillery of that corps. Soon the Prussian
Guards and the 12th corps began to suffer from the fire poured in from
the trenches that crowned the hill. On the German right, General
Steinmetz, instead of waiting for the hoped-for flank attack on the
north to take effect, sent the columns of the First Army to almost
certain death in the defile in front of Gravelotte, and he persisted in
these costly efforts even when the strength of the French position on
that side was patent to all. For this the tough old soldier met with
severe censure and ultimate disgrace. In his defence, however, it may be
urged that when a great battle is raging with doubtful fortunes, the
duty of a commander on the attacking side is to busy the enemy at as
many points as possible, so that the final blow may be dealt with
telling effect on a vital point where he cannot be adequately
reinforced; and the bull-dog tactics of Steinmetz in front of
Gravelotte, which cost the assailants many thousands of men, at any rate
served to keep the French reserves on that side, and thereby weaken the
support available for a more important point at the crisis of the fight.
It so happened, too, that the action of Steinmetz strengthened the
strange misconception of Bazaine that the Germans were striving to cut
him off from Metz on the south.
The real aim of the Germans was exactly the contrary, namely, to pin his
whole army to Metz by swinging round their right flank on the villages
of St. Privat and Raucourt. Having some 40,000 men under Canrobert in
and between these villages, whose solid buildings gave the defence the
best of cover, Bazaine had latterly taken little thought for that part
of his lines, though it was dangerously far removed from his reserves.
These he kept on the south, under the misconception which clung to him
here as at Rezonville.
The mistake was to prove fatal. As we have said, the German plan was to
turn the French right wing in the more open country on the north. To
this end the Prussian Guards and the Saxons, after driving the French
outposts from Ste. Marie-aux-Chênes, brought all their strength to the
task of crushing the French at their chief stronghold on the right, St.
Privat. The struggle of the Prussian Guards up the open slope between
that village and Amanvillers left them a mere shadow of their splendid
array; but the efforts of the German artillery cost the defenders dear:
by seven o'clock St. Privat was in flames, and as the Saxons (the 12th
corps), wheeling round from the north after a long flank-march, closed
in on the outlying village of Raucourt, Canrobert saw that the day was
lost unless he received prompt aid from the Imperial Guard. Bourbaki,
however, brought up only some 3000 of these choice troops, and that too
late to save St. Privat from the persistent fury of the German onset.
As dusk fell over the scene of carnage the French right fell back in
some disorder, even from part of Amanvillers. Farther south, they held
their ground. On the whole they had dealt to their foes a loss of 20,159
men, or nearly a tenth of their total. Of the French forces engaged,
some 150,000 in number, 7853 were killed and wounded, and 4419 were
taken prisoners. The disproportion in the losses shows the toughness of
the French defence and the (in part) unskilful character of the German
attack. On this latter point the recently published _Journals_ of
Field-Marshal Count von Blumenthal supply some piquant details. He
describes the indignation of King William at the wastefulness of the
German tactics at Gravelotte: "He complained bitterly that the officers
of the higher grades appeared to have forgotten all that had been so
carefully taught them at manoeuvres, and had apparently all lost their
heads." The same authority supplies what may be in part an explanation
of this in his comment, written shortly before Gravelotte, that he
believed there might not be another battle in the whole war--a remark
which savours of presumption and folly. Gravelotte, therefore, cannot be
considered as wholly creditable to the victors. Still, the result was
that some 180,000 French troops were shut up within the outworks
of Metz[42].
[Footnote 42: For fuller details of these battles the student should
consult the two great works on the subject--the Staff Histories of the
war, issued by the French and German General Staffs; Bazaine, _L'Armée
du Rhin_, and _Episodes de la Guerre_; General Blumenthal's _Journals_;
_Aus drei Kriegen_, by Gen. von Lignitz; Maurice, _The Franco-German
War_; Hooper, _The Campaign of Sedan_; the War Correspondence of the
_Times_ and the _Daily News_, published in book form.]
NOTE THE SECOND EDITION
With reference to M. Ollivier's statement (quoted on p. 55) that he
entered on war with a light heart, it should be added that he has since
explained his meaning to have been that the cause of France was just, that
of Prussia unjust.
CHAPTER III
SEDAN
"Nothing is more rash and contrary to the principles of war
than to make a flank-march before an army in position,
especially when this army occupies heights before which it is
necessary to defile."--NAPOLEON I.
The success of the German operations to the south and west of Metz
virtually decided the whole of the campaign. The Germans could now draw
on their vast reserves ever coming on from the Rhine, throw an iron ring
around that fortress, and thereby deprive France of her only great force
of regular troops. The throwing up of field-works and barricades went on
with such speed that the blockading forces were able in a few days to
detach a strong column towards Châlons-sur-Marne in order to help the
army of the Crown Prince of Prussia. That army in the meantime was in
pursuit of MacMahon by way of Nancy, and strained every nerve so as to
be able to strike at the southern railway lines out of Paris. It was,
however, diverted to the north-west by events soon to be described.
The German force detached from the neighbourhood of Metz consisted of
the Prussian Guards, the 4th and 12th corps, and two cavalry divisions.
This army, known as the Army of the Meuse, was placed under the command
of the Crown Prince of Saxony. Its aim was, in common with the Third
German Army (that of the Crown Prince of Prussia), to strike at MacMahon
before he received reinforcements. The screen of cavalry which preceded
the Army of the Meuse passed that river on the 22nd, when the bulk of
the forces of the Crown Prince of Prussia crossed not many miles farther
to the south. The two armies swept on westwards within easy distance of
one another; and on the 23rd their cavalry gleaned news of priceless
value, namely, that MacMahon's army had left Châlons. On the next day
the great camp was found deserted.
In fact, MacMahon had undertaken a task of terrible difficulty. On
taking over the command at Châlons, where Napoleon III. arrived from
Metz on the 16th, he found hopeless disorder not only among his own
beaten troops, but among many of the newcomers; the worst were the Garde
Mobile, many regiments of whom greeted the Emperor with shouts of _À
Paris_. To meet the Germans in the open plains of Champagne with forces
so incoherent and dispirited was sheer madness; and a council of war on
the 17th came to the conclusion to fall back on the capital and operate
within its outer forts--a step which might enable the army to regain
confidence, repress any rising in the capital, and perhaps inflict
checks on the Germans, until the provinces rose _en masse_ against the
invaders. But at this very time the Empress-Regent and the Palikao
Ministry at Paris came to an exactly contrary decision, on the ground
that the return of the Emperor with MacMahon's army would look like
personal cowardice and a mean desertion of Bazaine at Metz. The Empress
was for fighting _à outrance_, and her Government issued orders for a
national rising and the enrolling of bodies of irregulars, or
_francs-tireurs_, to harass the Germans[43].
[Footnote 43: See General Lebrun's _Guerre de 1870: Bazailles-Sedan_,
for an account of his corps of MacMahon's army.
In view of the events of the late Boer War, it is worth noting that the
Germans never acknowledged the _francs-tireurs_ as soldiers, and
forthwith issued an order ending with the words, "They are amenable to
martial law and liable to be sentenced to death" (Maurice,
_Franco-German War_, p. 215).]
Their decision was telegraphed to Napoleon III. at Châlons.
Against his own better judgment the Emperor yielded to political
considerations--that mill-stone around the neck of the French army in
1870--and decided to strike out to the north with MacMahon's army, and
by way of Montmédy stretch a hand to Bazaine, who, on his side, was
expected to make for that rendezvous. On the 21st, therefore, they
marched to Reims. There the Emperor received a despatch which Bazaine
had been able to get through the enemies' lines on the 19th, stating
that the Germans were making their way in on Metz, but that he (Bazaine)
hoped to break away towards Montmédy and so join MacMahon's army. (This,
it will be observed, was _after_ Gravelotte had been lost.) Napoleon
III. thereupon replied: "Received yours of the 19th at Reims; am going
towards Montmédy; shall be on the Aisne the day after to-morrow, and
there will act according to circumstances to come to your aid." Bazaine
did not receive this message until August 30, and then made only two
weak efforts to break out on the north (August 31-September 1). The
Marshal's action in sending that message must be pronounced one of the
most fatal in the whole war. It led the Emperor and MacMahon to a false
belief as to the position at Metz, and furnished a potent argument to
the Empress and Palikao at Paris to urge a march towards Montmédy at
all costs.
Doubtfully MacMahon led his straggling array from Reims in a
north-easterly direction towards Stenay on the Meuse. Rain checked his
progress, and dispirited the troops; but on the 27th August, while about
half-way between the Aisne and the Meuse, his outposts touched those of
the enemy. They were, in fact, those of the Prussian Crown Prince, whose
army was about to cross the northern roads over the Argonne, the line of
hills that saw the French stem the Prussian invasion in 1792. Far
different was the state of affairs now. National enthusiasm,
organisation, enterprise--all were on the side of the invaders. As has
been pointed out, their horsemen found out on the 23rd that the Châlons
camp was deserted; on the next day their scouts found out from a
Parisian newspaper that MacMahon was at Reims; and, on the day
following, newspaper tidings that had come round by way of London
revealed the secret that MacMahon was striving to reach Bazaine.
How it came about that this news escaped the eye of the censor has not
been explained. If it was the work of an English journalist, that does
not absolve the official censorship from the charge of gross
carelessness in leaving even a loophole for the transmission of
important secrets. Newspaper correspondents, of course, are the natural
enemies of Governments in time of war; and the experience of the year
1870 shows that the fate of Empires may depend on the efficacy of the
arrangements for controlling them. As a proof of the superiority of the
German organisation, or of the higher patriotism of their newspapers, we
may mention that no tidings of urgent importance leaked out through the
German Press. This may have been due to a solemn declaration made by
German newspaper editors and correspondents that they would never reveal
such secrets; but, from what we know of the fierce competition of
newspapers for priority of news, it is reasonable to suppose that the
German Government took very good care that none came in their way.
As a result of the excellent scouting of their cavalry and of the
slipshod Press arrangements of the French Government, the German Army of
the Meuse, on the 26th, took a general turn towards the north-west. This
movement brought its outposts near to the southernmost divisions of
MacMahon, and sent through that Marshal's staff the foreboding thrill
felt by the commander of an unseaworthy craft at the oncoming of the
first gust of a cyclone. He saw the madness of holding on his present
course and issued orders for a retreat to Mézières, a fortress on the
Meuse below Sedan. Once more, however, the Palikao Ministry intervened
to forbid this salutary move--the only way out of imminent danger--and
ordered him to march to the relief of Bazaine. At this crisis Napoleon
III. showed the good sense which seemed to have deserted the French
politicians: he advised the Marshal not to obey this order if he thought
it dangerous. Nevertheless, MacMahon decided to yield to the supposed
interests of the dynasty, which the Emperor was ready to sacrifice to
the higher claims of the safety of France. Their rôles were thus
curiously reversed. The Emperor reasoned as a sound patriot and a good
strategist. MacMahon must have felt the same promptings, but obedience
to the Empress and the Ministry, or chivalrous regard for Bazaine,
overcame his scruples. He decided to plod on towards the Meuse.
The Germans were now on the alert to entrap this army that exposed its
flank in a long line of march near to the Belgian frontier. Their
ubiquitous horsemen captured French despatches which showed them the
intended moves in MacMahon's desperate game; Moltke hurried up every
available division; and the elder of the two Alvenslebens had the honour
of surprising de Failly's corps amidst the woods of the Ardennes near
Beaumont, as they were in the midst of a meal. The French rallied and
offered a brisk defence, but finally fell back in confusion northwards
on Mouzon, with the loss of 2000 prisoners and 42 guns (August 30).
This mishap, the lack of provisions, and the fatigue and demoralisation
of his troops, caused MacMahon on the 31st to fall back on Sedan, a
little town in the valley of the Meuse. It is surrounded by ramparts
planned by the great Vauban, but, being commanded by wooded heights, it
no longer has the importance that it possessed before the age of
long-range guns of precision. The chief strength of the position for
defence lay in the deep loop of the river below the town, the dense
Garenne Wood to the north-east, and the hollow formed by the Givonne
brook on the east, with the important village of Bazeilles. It is
therefore not surprising that von Moltke, on seeing the French forces
concentrating in this hollow, remarked to von Blumenthal, Chief of the
Staff: "Now we have them in a trap; to-morrow we must cross over the
Meuse early in the morning."
The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st,
to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with
provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd,
make their escape by way of Mézières. Possibly they might have done so
on that night, and certainly they could have reached the Belgian
frontier, only some six miles distant, and there laid down their arms to
the Belgian troops whom the resourceful Bismarck had set on the _qui
vive._ To remain quiet even for a day in Sedan was to court disaster;
yet passivity characterised the French headquarters and the whole army
on that afternoon and evening. True, MacMahon gave orders for the bridge
over the Meuse at Donchéry to be blown up, but the engine-driver who
took the engineers charged with this important task, lost his nerve when
German shells whizzed about his engine, and drove off before the powder
and tools could be deposited. A second party, sent later on, found that
bridge in the possession of the enemy. On the east side, above Sedan,
the Bavarians seized the railway bridge south of Bazeilles, driving off
the French who sought to blow it up[44].
[Footnote 44: Moltke, _The Franco-German War_, vol. i. p. 114. Hooper,
_The Campaign of Sedan_, p. 296.]
Over the Donchéry bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that
village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and
as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen
working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off
escape on the west and north-west. Meanwhile, on the other side of the
town, von der Tann's Bavarians had begun the fight. Pressing in on
Bazeilles so as to hinder the retreat of the enemy (as had been so
effectively done at Colombey, on the east of Metz), they at first
surprised the sleeping French, but quickly drew on themselves a sharp
and sustained counter-attack from the marines attached to the 12th
French corps.
In order to understand the persistent vigour of the French on this side,
we must note the decisions formed by their headquarters on August 31 and
early on September 1. At a council of war held on the afternoon of the
31st no decision was reached, probably because the exhaustion of the
5th and 7th corps and the attack of the Bavarians on the 12th corps at
Bazeilles rendered any decided movement very difficult. The general
conclusion was that the army must have some repose; and Germans
afterwards found on the battlefield a French order--"Rest to-day for the
whole army." But already on the 30th an officer had come from Paris
determined to restore the morale of the army and break through towards
Bazaine. This was General de Wimpffen, who had gained distinction in
previous wars, and, coming lately from Algeria to Paris, was there
appointed to supersede de Failly in command of the 5th corps. Nor was
this all. The Palikao Ministry apparently had some doubts as to
MacMahon's energy, and feared that the Emperor himself hampered the
operations. De Wimpffen therefore received an unofficial mandate to
infuse vigour into the counsels at headquarters, and was entrusted with
a secret written order to take over the supreme command if anything were
to happen to MacMahon. On taking command of the 5th corps on the 30th,
de Wimpffen found it demoralised by the hurried retreat through Mouzon;
but neither this fact nor the exhaustion of the whole army abated the
determination of this stalwart soldier to break through towards Metz.
Early on September 1 the positions held by the French formed, roughly
speaking, a triangle resting on the right bank of the Meuse from, near
Bazeilles to Sedan and Glaire. Damming operations and the heavy rains of
previous days had spread the river over the low-lying meadows, thus
rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for an enemy to cross under
fire; but this same fact lessened the space by which the French could
endeavour to break through. Accordingly they deployed their forces
almost wholly along the inner slopes of the Givonne brook and of the
smaller stream that flows from the high land about Illy down to the
village of Floing and thence to the Meuse. The heights of Illy, crowned
by the Calvaire, formed the apex of the French position, while Floing
and Bazeilles formed the other corners of what was in many respects
good fighting-ground. Their strength was about 120,000 men, though many
of these were disabled or almost helpless from fatigue; that of the
Germans was greater on the whole, but three of their corps could not
reach the scene of action before 1 P.M. owing to the heaviness of the
roads[45]. At first, then, the French had a superiority of force and a
far more compact position, as will be seen by the accompanying plan.
[Footnote 45: Maurice, _The Franco-German War_, p. 235.]
We now resume the account of the battle. The fighting in and around
Bazeilles speedily led to one very important result. At 6 A.M. a
splinter of a shell fired by the assailants from the hills north-east of
that village, severely wounded Marshal MacMahon as he watched the
conflict from a point in front of the village of Balan. Thereupon he
named General Ducrot as his successor, passing over the claims of two
generals senior to him. Ducrot, realising the seriousness of the
position, prepared to draw off the troops towards the Calvaire of Illy
preparatory to a retreat on Mézières by way of St. Menges. The news of
this impending retreat, which must be conducted under the hot fire of
the Germans now threatening the line of the Givonne, cut de Wimpffen to
the quick. He knew that the Crown Prince held a force to the south-west
of Sedan, ready to fall on the flank of any force that sought to break
away to Mézières; and a temporary success of his own 5th corps against
the Saxons in la Moncelle strengthened his prepossession in favour of a
combined move eastwards towards Carignan and Metz. Accordingly, about
nine o'clock he produced the secret order empowering him to succeed
MacMahon should the latter be incapacitated. Ducrot at once yielded to
the ministerial ukase; the Emperor sought to intervene in favour of
Ducrot, only to be waved aside by the confident de Wimpffen; and thus
the long conflict between MacMahon and the Palikao Ministry ended in
victory for the latter--and disaster for France[46].
[Footnote 46: See Lebrun's _Guerre de 1870: Bazeilles-Sédan_, for these
disputes.] In hazarding this last statement we do not mean to imply
that a retreat on Mézières would then have saved the whole army. It
might, however, have enabled part of it to break through either to
Mézières or the Belgian boundary; and it is possible that Ducrot had the
latter objective in view when he ordered the concentration at Illy. In
any case, that move was now countermanded in favour of a desperate
attack on the eastern assailants. It need hardly be said that the result
of these vacillations was deplorable, unsteadying the defenders, and
giving the assailants time to bring up troops and cannon, and thereby
strengthen their grip on every important point. Especially valuable was
the approach of the 2nd Bavarian corps; setting out from Raucourt at 4
A.M. it reached the hills south of Sedan about 9, and its artillery
posted near Frénois began a terrible fire on the town and the French
troops near it.
About the same time the Second Division of the Saxons reinforced their
hard-pressed comrades to the north of la Moncelle, where, on de
Wimpffen's orders, the French were making a strong forward move. The
opportune arrival of these new German troops saved their artillery,
which had been doing splendid service. The French were driven back
across the Givonne with heavy loss, and the massed battery of 100 guns
crushed all further efforts at advance on this side. Meanwhile at
Bazeilles the marines had worthily upheld the honour of the French arms.
Despite the terrible artillery fire now concentrated on the village,
they pushed the German footmen back, but never quite drove them out.
These, when reinforced, renewed the fight with equal obstinacy; the
inhabitants themselves joined in with whatever weapons fury suggested to
them and as that merciless strife swayed to and fro amidst the roar of
artillery, the crash of walls, and the hiss of flame, war was seen in
all its naked ferocity.
Yet here again, as at all points, the defence was gradually overborne by
the superiority of the German artillery. About eleven o'clock the
French, despite their superhuman efforts, were outflanked by the
Bavarians and Saxons on the north of the village. Even then, when the
regulars fell back, some of the inhabitants went on with their mad
resistance; a great part of the village was now in flames, but whether
they were kindled by the Germans, or by the retiring French so as to
delay the victors, has never been cleared up. In either case, several of
the inhabitants perished in the flames; and it is admitted that the
Bavarians burnt some of the villagers for firing on them from the
windows[47].
[Footnote 47: M. Busch, _Bismarck in the Franco-German War_, vol. i. p.
114.]
In the defence of Bazeilles the French infantry showed its usual courage
and tenacity. Elsewhere the weary and dispirited columns were speedily
becoming demoralised under the terrific artillery fire which the Germans
poured in from many points of vantage. The Prussian Guards coming up
from Villers Cernay about 10 A.M. planted their formidable batteries so
as to sweep the Bois de Garenne and the ground about the Calvaire d'Illy
from the eastward; and about that time the guns of the 5th and 11th
German corps, that had early crossed the Meuse below Sedan, were brought
to bear on the west front of that part of the French position. The apex
of the defenders' triangle was thus severely searched by some 200 guns;
and their discharges, soon supported by the fire of skirmishers and
volleys from the troops, broke all forward movements of the French on
that side. On the south and south-east as many cannon swept the French
lines, but from a greater distance.
Up to nearly noon there seemed some chance of the French bursting
through on the north, and some of them did escape. Yet no well-sustained
effort took place on that side, apparently because, even after the loss
of Bazeilles at eleven o'clock, de Wimpffen clung to the belief that he
could cut his way out towards Carignan, if not by Bazeilles, then
perhaps by some other way, as Daigny or la Moncelle. The reasoning by
which he convinced himself is hard to follow; for the only road to
Carignan on that side runs through Bazeilles. Perhaps we ought to say
that he did not reason, but was haunted by one fixed notion; and the
history of war from the time of the Roman Varro down to the age of the
Austrian Mack and the French de Wimpffen shows that men whose brains
work in grooves and take no account of what is on the right hand and the
left, are not fit to command armies; they only yield easy triumphs to
the great masters of warfare--Hannibal, Napoleon the Great, and
von Moltke.
De Wimpffen, we say, paid little heed to the remonstrances of Generals
Douay and Ducrot at leaving the northern apex and the north-western
front of the defence to be crushed by weight of metal and of numbers. He
rode off towards Balan, near which village the former defenders of
Bazeilles were making a gallant and partly successful stand, and no
reinforcements were sent to the hills on the north. The villages of Illy
and Floing were lost; then the French columns gave ground even up the
higher ground behind them, so great was the pressure of the German
converging advance. Worst of all, skulkers began to hurry from the ranks
and seek shelter in the woods, or even under the ramparts of Sedan far
in the rear. The French gunners still plied their guns with steady
devotion, though hopelessly outmatched at all points, but it was clear
that only a great forward dash could save the day. Ducrot therefore
ordered General Margueritte with three choice cavalry regiments
(Chasseurs d'Afrique) and several squadrons of Lancers to charge the
advancing lines. Moving forward from the northern edge of the Bois de
Garenne to judge his ground, Margueritte fell mortally wounded. De
Bauffremont took his place, and those brave horsemen swept forward on a
task as hopeless as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, or that of
the French Cuirassiers at Wörth[48]. Their conduct was as glorious; but
the terrible power of the modern rifle was once more revealed. The
pounding of distant batteries they could brave; disordered but defiant
they swept on towards the German lines, but when the German infantry
opened fire almost at pistol range, rank after rank of the horsemen
went down as grass before the scythe. Here and there small bands of
horsemen charged the footmen on the flank, even in a few cases on their
rear, it is said; but the charge, though bravely renewed, did little
except to delay the German triumph and retrieve the honour of France.
[Footnote 48: Lebrun (_op. cit._ pp. 126-127; also Appendix D) maintains
that de Bauffremont then led the charge, de Gallifet leading only the
3rd Chasseurs d'Afrique.]
By about two o'clock the French cavalry was practically disabled, and
there now remained no Imperial Guard, as at Waterloo, to shed some rays
of glory over the disaster. Meanwhile, however, de Wimpffen had resolved
to make one more effort. Gathering about him a few of the best infantry
battalions in and about Sedan, he besought the Emperor to join him in
cutting a way out towards the east. The Emperor sent no answer to this
appeal; he judged that too much blood had already been needlessly shed.
Still, de Wimpffen persisted in his mad endeavour. Bursting upon the
Bavarians in the village of Balan, he drove them back for a space until
his men, disordered by the rush, fell before the stubborn rally of the
Bavarians and Saxons. With the collapse of this effort and the cutting
up of the French cavalry behind Floing, the last frail barriers to the
enemy's advance gave way. The roads to Sedan were now thronged with
masses of fugitives, whose struggles to pass the drawbridges into the
little fortress resembled an African battue; for King William and his
Staff, in order to hurry on the inevitable surrender, bade the 200 or
more pieces on the southern heights play upon the town. Still de
Wimpffen refused to surrender, and, despite the orders of his sovereign,
continued the hopeless struggle. At length, to stay the frightful
carnage, the Emperor himself ordered the white flag to be hoisted[49]. A
German officer went down to arrange preliminaries, and to his
astonishment was ushered into the presence of the Emperor. The German
Staff had no knowledge of his whereabouts. On hearing the news, King
William, who throughout the day sat on horseback at the top of the slope
behind Frénois, said to his son, the Crown Prince: "This is indeed a
great success; and I thank thee that thou hast contributed to it." He
gave his hand to his son, who kissed it, and then, in turn, to Moltke
and to Bismarck, who kissed it also. In a short time, the French General
Reille brought to the King the following autograph letter:--
MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes
troupes, il ne me reste qu'à remettre mon épée entre les
mains de Votre Majesté.--Je suis de Votre Majesté le
bon Frère
NAPOLÉON.
SÉDAN, _le 1er Septembre, 1870_.
[Footnote 49: Lebrun, _op. cit._ pp. 130 _et seq._ for the disputes
about surrender.]
The King named von Moltke to arrange the terms and then rode away to a
village farther south, it being arranged, probably at Bismarck's
suggestion, that he should not see the Emperor until all was settled.
Meanwhile de Wimpffen and other French generals, in conference with von
Moltke, Bismarck, and Blumenthal, at the village of Donchéry, sought to
gain easy terms by appealing to their generosity and by arguing that
this would end the war and earn the gratitude of France. To all appeals
for permission to let the captive army go to Algeria, or to lay down its
arms in Belgium, the Germans were deaf,--Bismarck at length plainly
saying that the French were an envious and jealous people on whose
gratitude it would be idle to count. De Wimpffen then threatened to
renew the fight rather than surrender, to which von Moltke grimly
assented, but Bismarck again interposed to bring about a prolongation of
the truce. Early on the morrow, Napoleon himself drove out to Donchéry
in the hope of seeing the King. The Bismarckian Boswell has given us a
glimpse of him as he then appeared: "The look in his light grey eyes was
somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived too fast."
[In his case, we may remark, this was induced by the painful disease
which never left him all through the campaign, and carried him off three
years later.] "He wore his cap a little on the right, to which side his
head also inclined. His short legs were out of proportion to the long
upper body. His whole appearance was a little unsoldier-like. The man
looked too soft--I might say too spongy--for the uniform he wore."
Bismarck, the stalwart Teuton who had wrecked his policy at all points,
met him at Donchéry and foiled his wish to see the King, declaring this
to be impossible until the terms of the capitulation were settled. The
Emperor then had a conversation with the Chancellor in a little cottage
belonging to a weaver. Seating themselves on two rush-bottomed chairs
beside the one deal table, they conversed on the greatest affairs of
State. The Emperor said he had not sought this war--"he had been driven
into it by the pressure of public opinion. I replied" (wrote Bismarck)
"that neither had any one with us wished for war--the King least of
all[50]." Napoleon then pleaded for generous terms, but admitted that
he, as a prisoner, could not fix them; they must be arranged with de
Wimpffen. About ten o'clock the latter agreed to an unconditional
surrender for the rank and file of the French army, but those officers
who bound themselves by their word of honour (in writing) not to fight
again during the present war were to be set free. Napoleon then had an
interview with the King. What transpired is not known, but when the
Emperor came out "his eyes" (wrote Bismarck) "were full of tears."
[Footnote 50: Busch, _Bismarck on the Franco-German War_, vol. i. p.
109. Contrast this statement with his later efforts (_Reminiscences_,
vol. ii. pp. 95-100) to prove that he helped to bring on war.]
The fallen monarch accepted the King's offer of the castle of
Wilhelmshöhe near Cassel for his residence up to the end of the war; it
was the abode on which Jerome Bonaparte had spent millions of thalers,
wrung from Westphalian burghers, during his brief sovereignty in
1807-1813. Thither his nephew set out two days after the catastrophe of
Sedan. And this, as it seems, was the end of a dynasty whose rise to
power dated from the thrilling events of the Bridge of Lodi, Arcola,
Rivoli, and the Pyramids. The French losses on September 1 were about
3000 killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 prisoners. On the next day
there surrendered 83,000 prisoners by virtue of the capitulation, along
with 419 field-pieces and 139 cannon of the fortress. Some 3000 had
escaped, through the gap in the German lines on the north-east, to the
Belgian frontier, and there laid down their arms.
The news of this unparalleled disaster began to leak out at Paris late
on the 2nd; on the morrow, when details were known, crowds thronged into
the streets shouting "Down with the Empire! Long live the Republic!"
Power still remained with the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry.
All must admit that the Empress Eugénie did what was possible in this
hopeless position. She appealed to that charming literary man, M.
Prosper Mérimée, to go to his friend, M. Thiers (at whom we shall glance
presently), and beg him to form a Ministry that would save the Empire
for the young Prince Imperial. M. Thiers politely but firmly refused to
give a helping hand to the dynasty which he looked on as the author of
his country's ruin.
On that day the Empress also summoned the Chambers--the Senate and the
Corps Législatif--a vain expedient, for in times of crisis the French
look to a man, not to Chambers. The Empire had no man at hand. General
Trochu, Governor of Paris, was suspected of being a Republican--at any
rate he let matters take their course. On the 4th, vast crowds filled
the streets; a rush was made to the Chamber, where various compromises
were being discussed; the doors were forced, and amid wild excitement a
proposal to dethrone the Napoleonic dynasty was put. Two Republican
deputies, Gambetta and Jules Favre, declared that the Hôtel de Ville was
the fit place to declare the Republic. There, accordingly, it was
proclaimed, the deputies for the city of Paris taking office as the
Government of National Defence. They were just in time to prevent
Socialists like Blanqui, Flourens, and Henri Rochefort from installing
the "Commune" in power. The Empress and the Prince Imperial at once
fled, and, apart from a protest by the Senate, no voice was raised in
defence of the Empire. Jules Favre who took up the burden of Foreign
Affairs in the new Government of National Defence was able to say in his
circular note of September 6 that "the Revolution of September 4 took
place without the shedding of a drop of blood or the loss of liberty to
a single person[51]."
[Footnote 51: Gabriel Hanotaux, _Contemporary France_, vol. i. p. 14
(Eng. edit.)]
That fact shows the unreality of Bonapartist rule in France. At bottom
Napoleon III.'s ascendancy was due to several causes, that told against
possible rivals rather than directly in his favour. Hatred of the
socialists, whose rash political experiments had led to the bloody days
of street fighting in Paris in June 1848, counted for much. Added to
this was the unpopularity of the House of Orleans after the sordid and
uninteresting rule of Louis Philippe (1830-48). The antiquated royalism
of the Elder or Legitimist branch of that ill-starred dynasty made it
equally an impossibility. Louis Napoleon promised to do what his
predecessors, Monarchical and Republican, had signally failed to do,
namely, to reconcile the claims of liberty and order at home and uphold
the prestige of France abroad. For the first ten years the glamour of
his name, the skill with which he promoted the material prosperity of
France, and the successes of his early wars, promised to build up a
lasting power. But then came the days of failing health and tottering
prestige--of financial scandals, of the Mexican blunder, of the
humiliation before the rising power of Prussia. To retrieve matters he
toyed with democracy in France, and finally allowed his Ministers to
throw down a challenge to Prussia; for, in the words of a French
historian, the conditions on which he held power "condemned him to be
brilliant[52]."
[Footnote 52: Said in 1852 by an eminent Frenchman to our countryman,
Nassau Senior (_Journals_, ii. _ad fin_).]
Failing at Sedan, he lost all; and he knew it. His reign, in fact, was
one long disaster for France. The canker of moral corruption began to
weaken her public life when the creatures of whom he made use in the
_coup d'état _of 1851 crept into place and power. The flashy
sensationalism of his policy, setting the tone for Parisian society, was
fatal to the honest unseen drudgery which builds up a solid edifice
alike in public and in private life. Even the better qualities of his
nature told against ultimate success. As has been shown, his vague but
generous ideas on Nationality drew French policy away from the paths of
obvious self-interest after the year 1864, and gave an easy victory to
the keen and objective statecraft of Bismarck. That he loved France as
sincerely as he believed in the power of the Bonapartist tradition to
help her, can scarcely admit of doubt. His conduct during the war of
1870 showed him to be disinterested, while his vision was clearer than
that of the Generals about him. But in the field of high policy, as in
the moral events that make or mar a nation's life, his influence told
heavily against the welfare of France; and he must have carried into
exile the consciousness that his complex nature and ill-matched
strivings had but served to bring his dynasty and his country to an
unexampled overthrow.
* * * * *
It may be well to notice here an event of world-wide importance, which
came as a sequel to the military collapse of France. Italians had always
looked to the day when Rome would be the national capital. The great
Napoleon during his time of exile at St. Helena had uttered the
prophetic words: "Italy isolated between her natural limits is destined
to form a great and powerful nation. . . . Rome will without doubt be
chosen by the Italians as their capital." The political and economic
needs of the present, coinciding herein with the voice of tradition,
always so strong in Italian hearts, pointed imperiously to Rome as the
only possible centre of national life.
As was pointed out in the Introduction, Pius IX. after the years of
revolution, 1848-49, felt the need of French troops in his capital, and
his harsh and reactionary policy (or rather, that of his masterful
Secretary of State, Antonelli) before long completely alienated the
feelings of his subjects.
After the master-mind of Cavour was removed by death, (June 1861), the
patriots struggled desperately, but in vain, to rid Rome of the presence
of foreign troops and win her for the national cause. Garibaldi's raids
of 1862 and 1867 were foiled, the one by Italian, the other by French
troops; and the latter case, which led to the sharp fight of Mentana,
effaced any feelings of gratitude to Napoleon III. for his earlier help,
which survived after his appropriation of Savoy and Nice. Thus matters
remained in 1867-70, the Pope relying on the support of French bayonets
to coerce his own subjects. Clearly this was a state of things which
could not continue. The first great shock must always bring down a
political edifice which rests not on its own foundations, but on
external buttresses. These were suddenly withdrawn by the war of 1870.
Early in August, Napoleon ordered all his troops to leave the Papal
States; and the downfall of his power a month later absolved Victor
Emmanuel from the claims of gratitude which he still felt towards his
ally of 1859.
At once the forward wing of the Italian national party took action in a
way that either forced, or more probably encouraged, Victor Emmanuel's
Government to step in under the pretext of preventing the creation of a
Roman Republic. The King invited Pius IX. to assent to the peaceful
occupation of Rome by the royal troops, and on receiving the expected
refusal, moved forward 35,000 soldiers. The resistance of the 11,000
Papal troops proved to be mainly a matter of form. The wall near the
Porta Pia soon crumbled before the Italian cannon, and after a brief
struggle at the breach, the white flag was hoisted at the bidding of the
Pope (Sept. 20).
Thus fell the temporal power of the Papacy. The event aroused
comparatively little notice in that year of marvels, but its results
have been momentous. At the time there was a general sense of relief, if
not of joy, in Italy, that the national movement had reached its goal,
albeit in so tame and uninspiring a manner. Rome had long been a prey to
political reaction, accompanied by police supervision of the most
exasperating kind. The _plébiscite_ as to the future government gave
133,681 votes for Victor Emmanuel's rule, and only 1507 negative
votes[53].
[Footnote 53: Countess Cesaresco, _The Liberation of Italy_, p. 411.]
Now, for the first time since the days of Napoleon I. and of the
short-lived Republic for which Mazzini and Garibaldi worked and fought
so nobly in 1849, the Eternal City began to experience the benefits of
progressive rule. The royal government soon proved to be very far from
perfect. Favouritism, the multiplication of sinecures, municipal
corruption, and the prosaic inroads of builders and speculators, soon
helped to mar the work of political reconstruction, and began to arouse
a certain amount of regret for the more picturesque times of the Papal
rule. A sentimental reaction of this kind is certain to occur in all
cases of political change, especially in a city where tradition and
emotion so long held sway.
The consciences of the faithful were also troubled when the _fiat_ of
the Pope went forth excommunicating the robber-king and all his chief
abettors in the work of sacrilege. Sons of the Church throughout Italy
were bidden to hold no intercourse with the interlopers and to take no
part in elections to the Italian Parliament which thenceforth met in
Rome. The schism between the Vatican and the King's Court and Government
was never to be bridged over; and even to-day it constitutes one of the
most perplexing problems of Italy.
Despite the fact that Rome and Italy gained little of that mental and
moral stimulus which might have resulted from the completion of the
national movement solely by the action of the people themselves, the
fact nevertheless remains that Rome needed Italy and Italy needed Rome.
The disappointment loudly expressed by idealists, sentimentalists, and
reactionaries must not blind us to the fact that the Italians, and above
all the Romans, have benefited by the advent of unity, political
freedom, and civic responsibility. It may well be that, in acting as the
leader of a constitutional people, the Eternal City will little by
little develop higher gifts than those nurtured under Papal tutelage,
and perhaps as beneficent to Humanity as those which, in the ancient
world, bestowed laws on Europe.
As Mazzini always insisted, political progress, to be sound, must be
based ultimately on moral progress. It is of its very nature slow, and
is therefore apt to escape the eyes of the moralist or cynic who dwells
on the untoward signs of the present. But the Rome for which Mazzini and
his compatriots yearned and struggled can hardly fail ultimately to rise
to the height of her ancient traditions and of that noble prophecy of
Dante: "_There_ is the seat of empire. There never was, and there never
will be, a people endowed with such capacity to acquire command, with
more vigour to maintain it, and more gentleness in its exercise, than
the Italian nation, and especially the Holy Roman people." The lines
with which Mr. Swinburne closed his "Dedication" of _Songs before
Sunrise_ to Joseph Mazzini are worthy of finding a place side by side
with the words of the mediaeval seer:--
Yea, even she as at first,
Yea, she alone and none other,
Shall cast down, shall build up, shall bring home,
Slake earth's hunger and thirst,
Lighten, and lead as a mother;
First name of the world's names, Rome.
CHAPTER IV
THE FOUNDING OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
"[Greek: egigneto te logo men daemokratia, ergo de hupo tou
protou andros archae]."
"Thus Athens, though still in name a democracy, was in fact
ruled by her greatest man."--THUCYDIDES, book ii. chap. 65.
The aim of this work being to trace the outlines only of those
outstanding events which made the chief States of the world what they
are to-day, we can give only the briefest glance at the remaining events
of the Franco-German War and the splendid though hopeless rally
attempted by the newly-installed Government of National Defence. Few
facts in recent history have a more thrilling interest than the details
of the valiant efforts made by the young Republic against the invaders.
The spirit in which they were made breathed through the words of M.
Picard's proclamation on September 4: "The Republic saved us from the
invasion of 1792. The Republic is proclaimed."
Inspiring as was this reference to the great and successful effort of
the First Republic against the troops of Central Europe in 1792, it was
misleading. At that time Prussia had lapsed into a state of weakness
through the double evils of favouritism and a facing-both-ways policy.
Now she felt the strength born of sturdy championship of a great
principle--that of Nationality--which had ranged nearly the whole of the
German race on her side. France, on the other hand, owing to the
shocking blunders of her politicians and generals during the war, had
but one army corps free, that of General Vinoy, which hastily retreated
from the neighbourhood of Mézières towards Paris on September 2 to 4.
She therefore had to count almost entirely on the Garde Mobile, the
Garde Nationale, and Francs-tireurs; but bitter experience was to show
that this raw material could not be organised in a few weeks to
withstand the trained and triumphant legions of Germany.
Nevertheless there was no thought of making peace with the invaders. The
last message of Count Palikao to the Chambers had been one of defiance
to the enemy; and the Parisian deputies, nearly all of them Republicans,
who formed the Government of National Defence, scouted all faint-hearted
proposals. Their policy took form in the famous phrase of Jules Favre,
Minister of Foreign Affairs: "We will give up neither an inch of our
territory nor a stone of our fortresses." This being so, all hope of
compromise with the Germans was vain. Favre had interviews with Bismarck
at the Château de Ferrières (September 19); but his fine oratory, even
his tears, made no impression on the Iron Chancellor, who declared that
in no case would an armistice be granted, not even for the election of a
National Assembly, unless France agreed to give up Alsace and a part of
Lorraine, allowing the German troops also to hold, among other places,
Strassburg and Toul.
Obviously, a self-constituted body like the provisional Government at
Paris could not accept these terms, which most deeply concerned the
nation at large. In the existing temper of Paris and France, the mention
of such terms meant war to the knife, as Bismarck must have known. On
their side, Frenchmen could not believe that their great capital, with
its bulwarks and ring of outer forts, could be taken; while the
Germans--so it seems from the Diary of General von Blumenthal--looked
forward to its speedy capitulation. One man there was who saw the
pressing need of foreign aid. M. Thiers (whose personality will concern
us a little later) undertook to go on a mission to the chief Powers of
Europe in the hope of urging one or more of them to intervene on behalf
of France.
The details of that mission are, of course, not fully known. We can
only state here that Russia now repaid Prussia's help in crushing the
Polish rebellion of 1863 by neutrality, albeit tinged with a certain
jealousy of German success. Bismarck had been careful to dull that
feeling by suggesting that she (Russia) should take the present
opportunity of annulling the provision, made after the Crimean War,
which prevented her from sending war-ships on to the Black Sea; and this
was subsequently done, under a thin diplomatic disguise, at the Congress
of London (March 1871). Bismarck's astuteness in supporting Russia at
this time therefore kept that Power quiet. As for Austria, she
undoubtedly wished to intervene, but did not choose to risk a war with
Russia, which would probably have brought another overthrow. Italy would
not unsheathe her sword for France unless the latter recognised her
right to Rome (which the Italian troops entered on September 20). To
this the young French Republic demurred. Great Britain, of course,
adhered to the policy of neutrality which she at first declared[54].
[Footnote 54: See Débidour, _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe_, vol.
ii. pp. 412-415. For Bismarck's fears of intervention, especially that
of Austria, see his _Reminiscences_, vol. ii. p. 109 (English edit.);
Count Beust's _Aus drei Viertel-Jahrhunderten_, pt. ii. pp. 361, 395;
for Thiers' efforts see his _Notes_ on the years 1870-73 (Paris 1904).]
Accordingly, France had to rely on her own efforts. They were
surprisingly great. Before the complete investment of Paris (September
20), a Delegation of the Government of National Defence had gone forth
to Tours with the aim of stirring up the provinces to the succour of the
besieged capital. Probably the whole of the Government ought to have
gone there; for, shut up in the capital, it lost touch with the
provinces, save when balloons and carrier-pigeons eluded the German
sharpshooters and brought precious news[55]. The mistake was seen in
time to enable a man of wondrous energy to leave Paris by balloon on
October 7, to descend as a veritable _deus ex machina_ on the faltering
Delegation at Tours, and to stir the blood of France by his invective.
There was a touch of the melodramatic not only in his apparition but in
his speeches. Frenchmen, however, follow a leader all the better if he
is a good stage-manager and a clever actor. The new leader was both; but
he was something more.
[Footnote 55: M. Grégoire in his _Histoire de France_, vol. iv. p. 647,
states that 64 balloons left Paris during the siege, 5 were captured and
2 lost in the sea; 363 carrier-pigeons left the city and 57 came in. For
details of the French efforts see _Les Responsabilités de la Défense
rationale_, by H. Génevois; also _The People's War in France,
1870-1871_, by Col. L. Hale (The Pall Mall Military Series, 1904),
founded on Hönig's _Der Volkskrieg an der Loire_.]
Léon Gambetta had leaped to the front rank at the Bar in the closing
days of 1868 by a passionate outburst against the _coup d'état_,
uttered, to the astonishment of all, in a small Court of Correctional
Police, over a petty case of State prosecution of a small Parisian
paper. Rejecting the ordinary methods of defence, the young barrister
flung defiance at Napoleon III. as the author of the _coup d'état_ and
of all the present degradation of France. The daring of the young
barrister, who thus turned the tables on the authorities and impeached
the head of the State, made a profound impression; it was redoubled by
the Southern intensity of his thought and expression. Disdaining all
forms of rhetoric, he poured forth a torrent of ideas, clothing them in
the first words that came to his facile tongue, enforcing them by blows
of the fist or the most violent gestures, and yet, again, modulating the
roar of passion to the falsetto of satire or the whisper of emotion. His
short, thick-set frame, vibrating with strength, doubled the force of
all his utterances. Nor did they lack the glamour of poetry and romance
that might be expected from his Italian ancestry. He came of a Genoese
stock that had for some time settled in the South of France. Strange
fate, that called him now to the front with the aim of repairing the
ills wrought to France by another Italian House! In time of peace his
power over men would have raised him to the highest positions had his
Bohemian exuberance of thought and speech been tameable. It was not. He
scorned prudence in moderation at all times, and his behaviour, when the
wave of Revolution at last carried him to power, gave point to the taunt
of Thiers--"c'est un fou furieux." Such was the man who now brought the
quenchless ardour of his patriotism to the task of rousing France. As
far as words and energy could call forth armies, he succeeded; but as he
lacked all military knowledge, his blind self-confidence was to cost
France dear.
Possibly the new levies of the Republic might at some point have pierced
the immense circle of the German lines around Paris (for at first the
besieging forces were less numerous than the besieged), had not the
assailants been strengthened by the fall of Metz (Oct. 27). This is not
the place to discuss the culpability of Bazaine for the softness shown
in the defence. The voluminous evidence taken at his trial shows that he
was very slack in the critical days at the close of August; it is also
certain that Bismarck duped him under the pretence that, on certain
conditions to be arranged with the Empress Eugénie, his army might be
kept intact for the sake of re-establishing the Empire[56]. The whole
scheme was merely a device to gain time and keep Bazaine idle, and the
German Chancellor succeeded here as at all points in his great game. On
October 27, then, 6000 officers, 173,000 rank and file, were constrained
by famine to surrender, along with 541 field-pieces and 800 siege guns.
[Footnote 56: Bazaine gives the details from his point of view in his
_Episodes de la Guerre de 1870 et le Blocus de Metz_ (Madrid, 1883). One
of the go-betweens was a man Regnier, who pretended to come from the
Empress Eugénie, then at Hastings; but Bismarck seems to have distrusted
him and to have dismissed him curtly. The adventuress, Mme. Humbert,
recently claimed that she had her "millions" from this Regnier. A sharp
criticism on Bazaine's conduct at Metz is given in a pamphlet, _Réponse
au Rapport sommaire sur les Opérations de l'Armée du Rhin_, by one of
his Staff Officers. See, too, M. Samuel Denis in his recent work,
_Histoire Contemporaine_ (de France).]
This capitulation, the greatest recorded in the history of civilised
nations, dealt a death-blow to the hopes of France. Strassburg had
hoisted the white flag a month earlier; and the besiegers of these
fortresses were free to march westwards and overwhelm the new levies.
After gaining a success at Coulmiers, near Orleans (Nov. 9), the French
were speedily driven down the valley of the Loire and thence as far west
as Le Mans. In the North, at St. Quentin, the Germans were equally
successful, as also in Burgundy against that once effective free-lance,
Garibaldi, who came with his sons to fight for the Republic. The last
effort was made by Bourbaki and a large but ill-compacted army against
the enemy's communications in Alsace. By a speedy concentration the
Germans at Héricourt, near Belfort, defeated this daring move (imposed
by the Government of National Defence on Bourbaki against his better
judgment), and compelled him and his hard-pressed followers to pass over
into Switzerland (January 30, 1871).
Meanwhile Paris had already surrendered. During 130 days, and that too
in a winter of unusual severity, the great city had held out with a
courage that neither defeats, schisms, dearth of food, nor the
bombardment directed against its southern quarters could overcome.
Towards the close of January famine stared the defenders in the face,
and on the 28th an armistice was concluded, which put an end to the war
except in the neighbourhood of Belfort. That exception was due to the
determination of the Germans to press Bourbaki hard, while the French
negotiators were not aware of his plight. The garrison of Paris, except
12,000 men charged with the duty of keeping order, surrendered; the
forts were placed in the besiegers' hands. When that was done the city
was to be revictualled and thereafter pay a war contribution of
200,000,000 francs (£8,000,000). A National Assembly was to be freely
elected and meet at Bordeaux to discuss the question of peace. The
National Guards retained their arms, Favre maintaining that it would be
impossible to disarm them; for this mistaken weakness he afterwards
expressed his profound sorrow[57].
[Footnote 57: It of course led up to the Communist revolt. Bismarck's
relations to the disorderly elements in Paris are not fully known; but
he warned Favre on Jan. 26 to "provoke an _émeute_ while you have an
army to suppress it with" (_Bismarck in Franco-German War_, vol. ii.
p. 265).]
Despite the very natural protests of Gambetta and many others against
the virtual ending of the war at the dictation of the Parisian
authorities, the voice of France ratified their action. An overwhelming
majority declared for peace. The young Republic had done wonders in
reviving the national spirit: Frenchmen could once more feel the
self-confidence which had been damped by the surrenders of Sedan and
Metz; but the instinct of self-preservation now called imperiously for
the ending of the hopeless struggle. In the hurried preparations for the
elections held on February 8, few questions were asked of the candidates
except that of peace or war; and it soon appeared that a great majority
was in favour of peace, even at the cost of part of the eastern
provinces.
Of the 630 deputies who met at Bordeaux on February 12, fully 400 were
Monarchists, nearly evenly divided between the Legitimists and
Orleanists; 200 were professed Republicans; but only 30 Bonapartists
were returned. It is not surprising that the Assembly, which met in the
middle of February, should soon have declared that the Napoleonic Empire
had ceased to exist, as being "responsible for the ruin, invasion, and
dismemberment of the country" (March 1). These rather exaggerated
charges (against which Napoleon III. protested from his place of exile,
Chislehurst) were natural in the then deplorable condition of France.
What is surprising and needs a brief explanation here, is the fact that
a monarchical Assembly should have allowed the Republic to be founded.
This paradoxical result sprang from several causes, some of them of a
general nature, others due to party considerations, while the personal
influence of one man perhaps turned the balance at this crisis in the
history of France. We will consider them in the order here named.
Stating the matter broadly, we may say that the present Assembly was not
competent to decide on the future constitution of France; and that vague
but powerful instinct, which guides representative bodies in such cases,
told against any avowedly partisan effort in that direction. The
deputies were fully aware that they were elected to decide the urgent
question of peace or war, either to rescue France from her long agony,
or to pledge the last drops of her life-blood in an affair of honour.
By an instinct of self-preservation, the electors, especially in the
country districts, turned to the men of property and local influence as
those who were most likely to save them from the frothy followers of
Gambetta. Accordingly, local magnates were preferred to the barristers
and pressmen, whose oratorical and literary gifts usually carry the day
in France; and more than 200 noblemen were elected. They were chosen not
on account of their nobility and royalism, but because they were certain
to vote against the _fou furieux_.
Then, too, the Royalists knew very well that time would be required to
accustom France to the idea of a King, and to adjust the keen rivalries
between the older and the younger branches of the Bourbon House.
Furthermore, they were anxious that the odium of signing a disastrous
peace should fall on the young Republic, not on the monarch of the
future. Just as the great Napoleon in 1814 was undoubtedly glad that the
giving up of Belgium and the Rhine boundary should devolve on his
successor, Louis XVIII., and counted on that as one of the causes
undermining the restored monarchy, so now the Royalists intended to
leave the disagreeable duty of ceding the eastern districts of France to
the Republicans who had so persistently prolonged the struggle. The
clamour of no small section of the Republican party for war _à outrance_
still played into the hands of the royalists and partly justified this
narrow partisanship. Events, however, were to prove here, as in so many
cases, that the party which undertook a pressing duty and discharged it
manfully, gained more in the end than those who shirked responsibility
and left the conduct of affairs to their opponents. Men admire those who
dauntlessly pluck the flower, safety, out of the nettle, danger.
Finally, the influence of one commanding personality was ultimately to
be given to the cause of the Republic. That strange instinct which in
times of crisis turns the gaze of a people towards the one necessary
man, now singled out M. Thiers. The veteran statesman was elected in
twenty-six Departments. Gambetta and General Trochu, Governor of Paris,
were each elected nine times over. It was clear that the popular voice
was for the policy of statesmanlike moderation which Thiers now summed
up in his person; and Gambetta for a time retired to Spain.
The name of Thiers had not always stood for moderation. From the time of
his youth, when his journalistic criticisms on the politics, literature,
art and drama of the Restoration period set all tongues wagging, to the
day when his many-sided gifts bore him to power under Louis Philippe, he
stood for all that is most beloved by the vivacious sons of France. His
early work, _The History of the French Revolution_, had endeared him to
the survivors of the old Jacobin and Girondin parties, and his eager
hostility to England during his term of office flattered the Chauvinist
feelings that steadily grew in volume during the otherwise dull reign of
Louis Philippe. In the main, Thiers was an upholder of the Orleans
dynasty, yet his devotion to constitutional principles, the ardour of
his Southern temperament,--he was a Marseillais by birth,--and the
vivacious egotism that never brooked contradiction, often caused sharp
friction with the King and the King's friends. He seemed born for
opposition and criticism. Thereafter, his conduct of affairs helped to
undermine the fabric of the Second Republic (1848-51). Flung into prison
by the minions of Louis Napoleon at the time of the _coup d'état_, he
emerged buoyant as ever, and took up again the rôle that he loved
so well.
Nevertheless, amidst all the seeming vagaries of Thiers' conduct there
emerge two governing principles--a passionate love of France, and a
sincere attachment to reasoned liberty. The first was absolute and
unchangeable; the second admitted of some variations if the ruler did
not enhance the glory of France, and also (as some cynics said)
recognise the greatness of M. Thiers. For the many gibes to which his
lively talents and successful career exposed him, he had his revenge.
His keen glance and incisive reasoning generally warned him of the
probable fate of Dynasties and Ministries. Like Talleyrand, whom he
somewhat resembled in versatility, opportunism, and undying love of
France, he might have said that he never deserted a Government before it
deserted itself. He foretold the fall of Louis Philippe under the
reactionary Guizot Ministry as, later on, he foretold the fall of
Napoleon III. He blamed the Emperor for not making war on Prussia in
1866 with the same unanswerable logic that marked his opposition to the
mad rush for war in 1870. And yet the war spirit had been in some sense
strengthened by his own writings. His great work, _The History of the
Consulate and Empire_, which appeared from 1845 to 1862--the last eight
volumes came out during the Second Empire--was in the main a
glorification of the First Napoleon. Men therefore asked with some
impatience why the panegyrist of the uncle should oppose the supremacy
of the nephew; and the action of the crowd in smashing the historian's
windows after his great speech against the war of 1870 cannot be called
wholly illogical, even if it erred on the side of Gallic vivacity.
In the feverish drama of French politics Time sometimes brings an
appropriate Nemesis. It was so now. The man who had divided the energies
of his manhood between parliamentary opposition of a somewhat factious
type and the literary cultivation of the Napoleonic legend, was now in
the evening of his days called upon to bear a crushing load of
responsibility in struggling to win the best possible terms of peace
from the victorious Teuton, in mediating between contending factions at
Bordeaux and Paris, and, finally, in founding a form of government which
never enlisted his whole-hearted sympathy, save as the least
objectionable expedient then open to France.
For the present, the great thing was to gain peace with the minimum of
sacrifice for France. Who could drive a better bargain than Thiers, the
man who knew France so well, and had recently felt the pulse of the
Governments of Europe? Accordingly, on the 17th of February, the
Assembly named him Head of the Executive Power "until it is based upon
the French Constitution." He declined to accept this post until the
words "of the French Republic" were substituted for the latter clause.
He had every reason for urging this demand. Unlike the Republic of 1848,
the strength of which was chiefly, or almost solely, in Paris, the
Republic was proclaimed at Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, before any
news came of the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty at the capital[58].
[Footnote 58: Seignobos, _A Political History of Contemporary Europe_,
vol. i. p. 187 (Eng. edit.).]
He now entrusted three important portfolios, those for Foreign Affairs,
Home Affairs, and Public Instruction, to pronounced Republicans--Jules
Favre, Picard, and Jules Simon. Having pacified the monarchical majority
by appealing to them to defer all questions respecting the future
constitution until affairs were more settled, he set out to meet
Bismarck at Versailles.
A disadvantage which almost necessarily besets parliamentary
institutions had weakened the French case before the negotiations began.
The composition of the Assembly implied a strong desire for peace--a
fact which Thiers had needlessly emphasised before he left Bordeaux. On
the other hand, Bismarck was anxious to end the war. He knew enough to
be uneasy at the attitude of the neutral States; for public opinion was
veering round in England, Austria, and Italy to a feeling of keen
sympathy for France, and even Russia was restless at the sight of the
great military Empire that had sprung into being on her flank. The
recent proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles--an event that
will be treated in a later chapter--opened up a vista of great
developments for the Fatherland, not unmixed with difficulties and
dangers. Above all, sharp differences had arisen between him and the
military men at the German headquarters, who wished to "bleed France
white" by taking a large portion of French Lorraine (including its
capital Nancy), a few colonies, and part of her fleet. It is now known
that Bismarck, with the same moderation that he displayed after
Königgrätz, opposed these extreme claims, because he doubted the
advisability of keeping Metz, with its large French population. The
words in which he let fall these thoughts while at dinner with Busch on
February 21 deserve to be quoted:--
If they (the French) gave us a milliard more (£40,000,000) we
might perhaps let them have Metz. We would then take
800,000,000 francs, and build ourselves a fortress a few
miles further back, somewhere about Falkenberg or
Saarbrück--there must be some suitable spot thereabouts. We
should thus make a clear profit of 200,000,000 francs.
[N.B.--A milliard = 1,000,000,000 francs.] I do not like so
many Frenchmen being in our house against their will. It is
just the same with Belfort. It is all French there too. The
military men, however, will not be willing to let Metz slip,
and perhaps they are right[59].
[Footnote 59: Busch, _Bismarck in the Franco-German War_, vol. ii. p.
341.]
A sharp difference of opinion had arisen between Bismarck and Moltke on
this question, and the Emperor Wilhelm intervened in favour of Moltke.
That decided the question of Metz against Thiers despite his threat that
this might lead to a renewal of war. For Belfort, however, the French
statesman made a supreme effort. That fortress holds a most important
position. Strong in itself, it stands as sentinel guarding the gap of
nearly level ground between the spurs of the Vosges and those of the
Jura. If that virgin stronghold were handed over to Germany, she would
easily be able to pour her legions down the valley of the Doubs and
dominate the rich districts of Burgundy and the Lyonnais. Besides,
military honour required France to keep a fortress that had kept the
tricolour flying. Metz the Germans held, and it was impossible to turn
them out. Obviously the case of Belfort was on a different footing. In
his conference of February 24, Thiers at last defied Bismarck in these
words: "No; I will never yield Belfort and Metz in the same breath. You
wish to ruin France in her finances, in her frontiers. Well! Take her.
Conduct her administration, collect her revenues, and you will have to
govern her in the face of Europe--if Europe permits[60]."
[Footnote 60: G. Hanotaux, _Contemporary France_, vol i. p. 124 (Eng.
edit.). This work is the most detailed and authoritative that has yet
appeared on these topics. See, too, M. Samuel Denis' work, _Histoire
Contemporaine_.]
Probably this defiance had less weight with the Iron Chancellor than his
conviction, noticed above, that to bring two entirely French towns
within the German Empire would prove a source of weakness; beside which
his own motto, _Beati possidentes_, told with effect in the case of
Belfort. That stronghold was accordingly saved for France. Thiers also
obtained a reduction of a milliard from the impossible sum of six
milliards first named for the war indemnity due to Germany; in this
matter Jules Favre states that British mediation had been of some avail.
If so, it partly accounts for the hatred of England which Bismarck
displayed in his later years. The Preliminaries of Peace were signed at
Versailles on February 26.
One other matter remained. The Germans insisted that, if Belfort
remained to France, part of their army should enter Paris. In vain did
Thiers and Jules Favre point out the irritation that this would cause
and the possible ensuing danger. The German Emperor and his Staff made
it a point of honour, and 30,000 of their troops accordingly marched in
and occupied for a brief space the district of the Champs Élysées. The
terms of peace were finally ratified in the Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10,
1871), whereby France ceded Alsace and part of Lorraine, with a
population of some 1,600,000 souls, and underwent the other losses noted
above. Last but not least was the burden of supporting the German army
of occupation that kept its grip on the north-east of France until, as
the instalments came in, the foreign troops were proportionately drawn
away eastwards. The magnitude of these losses and burdens had already
aroused cries of anguish in France. The National Assembly at Bordeaux,
on first hearing the terms, passionately confirmed the deposition of
Napoleon III.; while the deputies from the ceded districts lodged a
solemn protest against their expatriation (March 1). Some of the
advanced Republican deputies, refusing to acknowledge the cession of
territory, resigned their seats in the Assembly. Thus there began a
schism between the Radicals, especially those of Paris, and the
Assembly, which was destined to widen into an impassable gulf. Matters
were made worse by the decision of the Assembly to sit, not at the
capital, but at Versailles, where it would be free from the commotions
of the great city. Thiers himself declared in favour of Versailles;
there the Assembly met for the first time on March 20, 1871.
A conflict between this monarchical Assembly and the eager Radicals of
Paris perhaps lay in the nature of things. The majority of the deputies
looked forward to the return of the King (whether the Comte de Chambord
of the elder Bourbons, or the Comte de Paris of the House of Orleans) as
soon as France should be freed from the German armies of occupation and
the spectre of the Red Terror. Some of their more impatient members
openly showed their hand, and while at Bordeaux began to upbraid Thiers
for his obstinate neutrality on this question. For his part, the wise
old man had early seen the need of keeping the parties in check. On
February 17 he begged them to defer questions as to the future form of
government, working meanwhile solely for the present needs of France,
and allowing future victory to be the meed of that party which showed
itself most worthy of trust. "Can there be any man" (he exclaimed) "who
would dare learnedly to discuss the articles of the Constitution, while
our prisoners are dying of misery far away, or while our people,
perishing of hunger, are obliged to give their last crust to the foreign
soldiers?" A similar appeal on March led to the informal truce on
constitutional questions known as the Compact of Bordeaux. It was at
best an uncertain truce, certain to be broken at the first sign of
activity on the Republican side.
That activity was now put forth by the "Reds" of Paris. It would take us
far too long to describe the origins of the municipal socialism which
took form in the Parisian Commune of 1871. The first seeds of that
movement had been sown by its prototype of 1792-93, which summed up all
the daring and vigour of the revolutionary socialism of that age. The
idea had been kept alive by the "National Workshops" of 1848, whose
institution and final suppression by the young Republic of that year had
been its own undoing.
History shows, then, that Paris, as the head of France, was accustomed
to think and act vigorously for herself in time of revolution. But
experience proved no less plainly that the limbs, that is, the country
districts, generally refused to follow the head in these fantastic
movements. Hence, after a short spell of St. Vitus' activity, there
always came a time of strife, followed only too often by torpor, when
the body reduced the head to a state of benumbed subjection. The triumph
of rural notions accounts for the reactions of 1831-47, and 1851-70.
Paris having once more regained freedom of movement by the fall of the
Second Empire on September 4, at once sought to begin her
politico-social experiments, and, as we pointed out, only the
promptitude of the "moderates," when face to face with the advancing
Germans, averted the catastrophe of a socialistic regime in Paris during
the siege. Even so, the Communists made two determined efforts to gain
power; the former of these, on October 31, nearly succeeded. Other towns
in the centre and south, notably Lyons, were also on the brink of
revolutionary socialism, and the success of the movement in Paris might
conceivably have led to a widespread trial of the communal experiment.
The war helped to keep matters in the old lines.
But now, the feelings of rage at the surrender of Paris and the cession
of the eastern districts of France, together with hatred of the
monarchical assembly that flouted the capital by sitting at the abode of
the old Kings of France, served to raise popular passion to fever heat.
The Assembly undoubtedly made many mistakes: it authorised the payment
of rents and all other obligations in the capital for the period of
siege as if in ordinary times, and it appointed an unpopular man to
command the National Guards of Paris. At the close of February the
National Guards formed a Central Committee to look after their interests
and those of the capital; and when the Executive of the State sent
troops of the line to seize their guns parked on Montmartre, the
Nationals and the rabble turned out in force. The troops refused to act
against the National Guards, and these murdered two Generals, Lecomte
and Thomas (March 18). Thiers and his Ministers thereupon rather tamely
retired to Versailles, and the capital fell into the hands of the
Communists. Greater firmness at the outset might have averted the
horrors that followed.
The Communists speedily consulted the voice of the people by elections
conducted in the most democratic spirit. In many respects their
programme of municipal reforms marked a great improvement on the type of
town-government prevalent during the Empire. That was, practically,
under the control of the imperial _préfets_. The Communists now asserted
the right of each town to complete self-government, with the control of
its officials, magistrates, National Guards, and police, as well as of
taxation, education, and many other spheres of activity. The more
ambitious minds looked forward to a time when France would form a
federation of self-governing Communes, whose delegates, deciding matters
of national concern, would reduce the executive power to complete
subservience. At bottom this Communal Federalism was the ideal of
Rousseau and of his ideal Cantonal State.
By such means, they hoped, the brain of France would control the body,
the rural population inevitably taking the position of hewers of wood
and drawers of water, both in a political and material sense.
Undoubtedly the Paris Commune made some intelligent changes which
pointed the way to reforms of lasting benefit; but it is very
questionable whether its aims could have achieved permanence in a land
so very largely agricultural as France then was. Certainly it started
its experiment in the worst possible way, namely, by defying the
constituted authorities of the nation at large, and by adopting the old
revolutionary calendar, and the red flag, the symbol of social
revolution. Thenceforth it was an affair of war to the knife.
The National Government, sitting at Versailles, could not at first act
with much vigour. Many of the line regiments sympathised with the
National Guards of Paris: these were 200,000 strong, and had command of
the walls and some of the posts to the south-west of Paris. The Germans
still held the forts to the north and east of the capital, and refused
to allow any attack on that side. It has even been stated that Bismarck
favoured the Communists; but this is said to have resulted from their
misreading of his promise to maintain a _friedlich_ (peaceful) attitude,
as if it were _freundlich_ (friendly)[61]. The full truth as to
Bismarck's relations to the Commune is not known. The Germans, however,
sent back a force of French prisoners, and these with other troops,
after beating back the Communist sortie of April 3, began to threaten
the defences of the city. The strife at once took on a savage character,
as was inevitable after the murder of two Generals in Paris. The
Versailles troops, treating the Communists as mere rebels, shot their
chief officers. Thereupon the Commune retaliated by ordering the capture
of hostages, and by seizing the Archbishop of Paris, and several other
ecclesiastics (April 5). It also decreed the abolition of the budget for
Public Worship and the confiscation of clerical and monastic property
_throughout France_--a proposal which aroused ridicule and contempt.
[Footnote 61: Débidour, _Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe_, vol. ii. p.
438-440.]
It would be tedious to dwell on the details of this terrible strife.
Gradually the regular forces overpowered the National Guards of Paris,
drove them from the southern forts, and finally (May 21) gained a
lodgment within the walls of Paris at the Auteuil gate. Then followed a
week of street-fighting and madness such as Europe had not seen since
the Peninsular War. "Room for the people, for the bare-armed fighting
men. The hour of the revolutionary war has struck." This was the placard
posted throughout Paris on the 22nd, by order of the Communist chief,
Delescluze. And again, "After the barricades, our houses; after our
houses, our ruins." Preparations were made to burn down a part of
Central Paris to delay the progress of the Versaillese. Rumour magnified
this into a plan of wholesale incendiarism, and wild stories were told
of _pétroleuses_ flinging oil over buildings, and of Communist firemen
ready to pump petroleum. A squad of infuriated "Reds" rushed off and
massacred the Archbishop of Paris and six other hostages, while
elsewhere Dominican friars, captured regulars, and police agents fell
victims to the rage of the worsted party.
Madness seemed to have seized on the women of Paris. Even when the men
were driven from barricades by weight of numbers or by the capture of
houses on their flank, these creatures fought on with the fury of
despair till they met the death which the enraged linesmen dealt out to
all who fought, or seemed to have fought. Simpson, the British war
correspondent, tells how he saw a brutal officer tear the red cross off
the arm of a nurse who tended the Communist wounded, so that she might
be done to death as a fighter[62]. Both sides, in truth, were maddened
by the long and murderous struggle, which showed once again that no
strife is so horrible as that of civil war. On Sunday, May 28, the last
desperate band was cut down at the Cemetery Père-Lachaise, and fighting
gave way to fusillades. Most of the chiefs perished without the pretence
of trial, and the same fate befel thousands of National Guards, who were
mown down in swathes and cast into trenches. In the last day of
fighting, and the horrible time that followed, 17,000 Parisians are said
to have perished[63]. Little by little, law reasserted her sway, but
only to doom 9600 persons to heavy punishment. Not until 1879 did
feelings of mercy prevail, and then, owing to Gambetta's powerful
pleading, an amnesty was passed for the surviving Communist prisoners.
[Footnote 62: _The Autobiography of William Simpson_ (London, 1903), p.
261.]
[Footnote 63: G. Hanotaux, _Contemporary France_, p. 225. For further
details see Lissagaray's _History of the Commune_; also personal details
in Washburne's _Recollections of a Minister to France_, 1869-1877, vol.
ii. chaps, ii.-vii.]
The Paris Commune affords the last important instance of a determined
rising in Europe against a civilised Government. From this statement we
of course except the fitful efforts of the Carlists in Spain; and it is
needless to say that the risings of the Bulgarians and other Slavs
against Turkish rule have been directed against an uncivilised
Government. The absence of revolts in the present age marks it off from
all that have preceded, and seems to call for a brief explanation.
Obviously, there is no lack of discontent, as the sequel will show.
Finland, portions of Caucasia, and all the parts of the once mighty
realm of Poland which have fallen to Russia and Prussia, now and again
heave with anger and resentment. But these feelings are suppressed. They
do not flame forth, as was the case in Poland as late as the year 1863.
What is the reason for this? Mainly, it would seem, the enormous powers
given to the modern organised State by the discoveries of mechanical
science and the triumphs of the engineer. Telegraphy now flashes to the
capital the news of a threatening revolt in the hundredth part of the
time formerly taken by couriers with their relays of horses. Fully as
great is the saving of time in the transport of large bodies of troops
to the disaffected districts. Thus, the all-important factors that make
for success--force, skill, and time--are all on the side of the central
Governments[64].
[Footnote 64: See _Turkey in Europe_, by "Odysseus" (p. 130), for the
parallel instance of the enhanced power of the Sultan Abdul Hamid owing
to the same causes.]
The spread of constitutional rule has also helped to dispel
discontent--or, at least, has altered its character. Representative
government has tended to withdraw disaffection from the market-place,
the purlieus of the poor, and the fastnesses of the forest, and to focus
it noisily but peacefully in the columns of the Press and the arena of
Parliament. The appeal now is not so much to arms as to argument; and in
this new sphere a minority, provided that it is well organised and
persistent, may generally hope to attain its ends. Revolt, even if it
take the form of a refusal to pay taxes, is therefore an anachronism
under a democracy; unless, as in the case of the American Civil War, two
great sections of the country are irreconcilably opposed.
The fact, however, that there has been no widespread revolt in Russia
since the year 1863, shows that democracy has not been the chief
influence tending to dissolve or suppress discontent. As we shall see in
a later chapter, Russia has defied constitutionalism and ground down
alien races and creeds; yet (up to the year 1904) no great rising has
shaken her autocratic system to its base. This seems to prove that the
immunity of the present age in regard to insurrections is due rather to
the triumphs of mechanical science than to the progress of democracy.
The fact is not pleasing to contemplate; but it must be faced. So also
must its natural corollary: that the minority, if rendered desperate,
may be driven to arm itself with new and terrible engines of destruction
in order to shatter that superiority of force with which science has
endowed the centralised Governments of to-day.
Certain it is that desperation, perhaps brought about by a sense of
helplessness in face of an armed nation, was one of the characteristics
of the Paris Commune, as it was also of Nihilism in Russia. In fact the
Communist effort of 1871 may be termed a belated attempt on the part of
a daring minority to dominate France by seizing the machinery of
government at Paris. The success of the Extremists of 1793 and 1848 in
similar experiments--not to speak of the Communistic rising of Babeuf in
1797--was only temporary; but doubtless it encouraged the "Reds" of 1871
to make their mad bid for power. Now, however, the case was very
different. France was no longer a lethargic mass, dominated solely by
the eager brain of Paris. The whole country thrilled with political
life. For the time, the provinces held the directing power, which had
been necessarily removed from the capital; and--most powerful motive of
all--they looked on the Parisian experiment as gross treason to _la
patrie_, while she lay at the feet of the Germans. Thus, the very
motives which for a space lent such prestige and power to the
Communistic Jacobins of 1793 told against their imitators in 1871.
The inmost details of their attempt will perhaps never be fully known;
for too many of the actors died under the ruins of the building they had
so heedlessly reared. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Commune was far
from being the causeless outburst that it has often been represented. In
part it resulted from the determination of the capital to free herself
from the control of the "rurals" who dominated the National Assembly;
and in that respect it foreshadowed, however crudely, what will probably
be the political future of all great States, wherein the urban
population promises altogether to outweigh and control that of the
country. Further, it should be remembered that the experimenters of 1871
believed the Assembly to have betrayed the cause of France by ceding her
eastern districts, and to be on the point of handing over the Republic
to the Monarchists. A fit of hysteria, or hypochondria, brought on by
the exhausting siege and by exasperation at the triumphal entry of the
Germans, added the touch of fury which enabled the Radicals of Paris to
challenge the national authorities and thereafter to persist in their
defiance with French logicality and ardour.
France, on the other hand, looked on the Communist movement at Paris and
in the southern towns as treason to the cause of national unity, when
there was the utmost need of concord. Thus on both sides there were
deplorable misunderstandings. In ordinary times they might have been
cleared away by frank explanations between the more moderate leaders;
but the feverish state of the public mind forbade all thoughts of
compromise, and the very weakness brought on by the war sharpened the
fit of delirium which will render the spring months of the year 1871 for
ever memorable even in the thrilling annals of Paris.
CHAPTER V
THE FOUNDING OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC (_continued_)
The seemingly suicidal energy shown in the civil strifes at Paris served
still further to depress the fortunes of France. On the very day when
the Versailles troops entered the walls of Paris, Thiers and Favre
signed the treaty of peace at Frankfurt. The terms were substantially
those agreed on in the preliminaries of February, but the terms of
payment of the indemnity were harder than before. Resistance was
hopeless. In truth, the Iron Chancellor had recently used very
threatening language: he accused the French Government of bad faith in
procuring the release of a large force of French prisoners, ostensibly
for the overthrow of the Commune, but really in order to patch up
matters with the "Reds" of Paris and renew the war with Germany.
Misrepresentations and threats like these induced Thiers and Favre to
agree to the German demands, which took form in the Treaty of Frankfurt
(May 10, 1871).